Stunning Nebula Photo Shows Head of 'Cosmic Seagull'

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A huge cloud of gas that looks like the head of a seagull shines
brightly in a gorgeous new picture snapped by a telescope in
Chile.

The photo, taken by a telescope at the European Southern
Observatory's La Silla Observatory,
shows the head portion of the Seagull Nebula. The cloud of
gas spotlighted in the image glows intensely due to radiation
blasted out by a hot young star at its heart, scientists said.

Like other nebulas,
the Seagull is a stellar nursery — an enormous cloud of dust,
hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases where stars are being
born. Nebulas come in a variety of sizes and shapes, some of
which spur astronomers' imaginations and evoke comparisons to
animals or familiar objects.

The Seagull Nebula is so named because it resembles a gull in
flight. The nebula, which is formally known as IC 2177, spans
about 100 light-years from wingtip to wingtip. It's found about
3,700 light-years from Earth, on the border between the constellations
Monoceros (The Unicorn) and Canis Major (The Great Dog).

The nebula appears to be close to Sirius, the brightest star in
the sky. But IC 2177 actually lies more than 400 times farther
away from us than Sirius, researchers said.

The bright star lighting up the Seagull's head is known as HD
53367. This star, which is visible in the center of the image and
could be taken to be the bird's eye, is about 20 times more
massive than our own sun, researchers said.

Radiation streaming from the nebula's young stars causes
surrounding hydrogen gas to glow a rich red color. Light from
these hot bluish-white stars also scatters off tiny dust
particles, creating the blue haze seen in parts of the picture.

Parts of the Seagull Nebula complex were first observed in 1785
by the famed German-British astronomer Sir William Herschel, but
the region imaged in the new picture weren't photographed until a
century later, researchers said.